Chapter 271 The Beginning of the Season at College Basketball 3 (1/2)

When Jake arrived at the university everyone was asleep, he also went to sleep when he felt tired, when he woke up in the morning it was almost time to go to classes, Zack had left to run in the morning and William and Aaron praised Jake for winning more a marathon.

After attending classes with William, Jake went to basketball training to do the training and warn Coach Smith that he had returned, the coach had to know that he could count on him for the rest of the pre-match training.

For Jake and the team, this marathon stop was great before the first game, Jake had received the same statistic reward he received the first time he won in Chicago, with 1 more Resistance point and 1 agility point better for the first game.

In addition, this would make Jake's 50 km high-speed running training much easier, and basketball training was not a problem for Jake at the moment, but it could be when the basketball team games started.

Jake also talked to his mother about the race victory and Tiffany who was very happy, after basketball training he can talk to Zack who also congratulated Jake on winning.

After that Jake focused only on his training with the basketball team, Coach Smith decided to leave Jake in reserve and play with Ed Cota as a starter, Shammond Williams would play part in the position of PG and part of the game in position of SG.

So Ed Cota and Vince Carter who would spend a few minutes taking turns, Jake would also play PG taking turns so Shammond William would probably play more in SG's position and Vince would have to stay a few minutes in reserve.

Makhtar N'Diaye would play in PF position and so with Antawn Jamison playing as SF the team was complete, Coach Smith also planned to let Jake play as SF and put Antawn Jamison as PF at some points in the game.

So Center Serge Zwikker would be the least likely to have to take their position in the game and could play longer on the court, Coach Smith had problems with how to scale players but was happy to have those skilled player problems left in the team.

This was the team decided for the first game, after forming this team Coach Smith organized more specific training to train players for the first game of the season.

Usually, the first games of a new season at university were more complicated, because sometimes some players were still out of shape and the team would have to get used to the new players.

After a few weeks, the day of the first game had arrived, on November 22, 1996, the first opponent was the Arizona Wildcats team, the Wildcats had won the NCAA National Tournament after eliminating the Tar Heels team that Jake was now.

So you could see how strong the opponents of the first game were, in this game in Jake's past life the Tar Heels team had lost that game, so this time probably the same would happen if Jake didn't play in the game.

Even though Jake wasn't worried about that, the opposing team was strong and if Jake couldn't play many minutes he knew it wouldn't make much difference in this game, the game would be at Springfield Civic Center in Springfield, MA.

The whole team was excited for this first game, even if the opponents had tradition no one was afraid because the Tar Heels team also had the tradition, of course, if they knew what Jake knew would probably be different.

Coach Dean Smith did a great job of motivating and encouraging the players, for the most talented players often working with the confidence of the players was more important than the tactics that had already been put into training.

College basketball rules were different from high school, the games had two 20-minute strokes each and a 15-minute break, so Jake's Resistance would make a lot more difference if he played a full game.

Everyone knew on the day of the game what position they would play in or if they would be in reserve, Jake naturally as he hoped would be in reserve, but he did not expect Ed Cota to stay in reserve either.

It would be Shammond Williams who would play in PG position and Ademola Okulaja would play as PF, Vince Carter would start in SG position and the others were the same as training when the game started Jake was very excited to finally be playing his first game in university.

Jake knew the skill of his teammates very well and so was paying more attention to the opposing team players in the first half of the game, Michael Bibby was the opposing team's PG and Jake knew him a little.

He played in the NBA for 14 years as a pro and then became a coach, never managed to win an NBA champion ring of the season, but took his team to some playoffs, earning some NBA All-Rookie honors in 1999.

He was not a player Jake considered very good, but had a stable performance usually averaging over 12 points per game and 5 assists plus a few rebounds, yet managed to play for 14 years in the NBA which was impressive.